Soyence of Resistance

As much of the general public in the United States is well aware, the politics of the country are a “panem et circenses” situation. The political left and right duke it out with each other over all the mediums of communication, most exceptionally on social media. Trump sent ICE agents out last month to create a spectacle of terror in Minneapolis, infuriating the generally blue and leftist residents of the city. Democrats get into screaming matches with their ideological opponents in congressional hearings because the discourse of the present demands anger and emotions in order to animate and “entertain” the electorate. Whether its entertaining or just difficult to take your eyes off of because of social media algorithms doesn’t matter. What most perturbs me is the dialectics of resistance that social media has shaped on both the left and right political spectrum. While a print culture of the 19th century may have shaped bipartisanship to be the norm most of the time in that era, the social media culture of the 21st century breeds impasse after impasse in terms of ideological debate and cooperation.

When someone makes a post on twitter, an algorithm makes calculations on the backend for how the post interactions will affect its visibility on the website for all users. The most inflammatory and sensational content will obviously make a breakaway towards the front of the line including any sort of political or reactionary content that will cause outrage or sustained attention from people. This could be any topic, from a politician making a racist joke or a celebrity engaging in drunken brawls, that animates people and captures attention. Inevitably, this affects the mode of discourse. Why think through things when your emotions are what get animated by the interface you’re interacting with? What’s the point of working together when your echo chamber of an algorithm gets nothing out of it? Perhaps the corporations that run social media can feign ignorance and blame it on factors beyond their control, but the reality is that they profit off of the news of the day. They make big bucks when someone gets pissed off and writes a nasty comment towards someone or something. When people make all the content for you, all you have to do is tweak your algorithm and wait for the ad money to roll right in. It’s a self perpetuating cycle of reaction and unconscious scrolling that blankets any sort of rational or productive discussion on the state of things.

Which brings into question the act of “resistance”. What does this mean in the present day? Does it involve engaging in Twitter or Facebook flame wars in the comments in order to detest the bad orange man? Does it mean going into the streets and harassing people expressing their opinions for short form algorithmic content? Is it engaging in Signal groupchats sharing potential rumors or activities of ICE agents in your general vicinity? This in and of itself becomes a topic of confusion for most normies. Perhaps with good reason, we can think of no better way to resist the general system than to partake in its myriad tools and activities and show the naughty elites who’s boss! Simply put all of your information, opinions, and photos online for everyone to see and hope that it doesn’t blow up at you in the form of death threats and harassment from your detractors. Unflinching faith in software such as Signal is particularly bewildering. End to End encryption is no doubt great but utilizing something that requires phone number verification is absurd in terms of operational security. Especially if you plan on doing subversive activities against the government. Liberal or conservative resistance essentially boils down into the following: In order to change the system, you must perpetuate the system with all of its gadgets and discourse. This fallacy does a disservice to everyone involved and will ultimately lead to nothing changing. This begs the question: What does meaningful resistance look like?

Rearranging your life in terms of systems and processes that suck as much life out of the mainstream as possible is much more assertive than making an online account or posting videos on TikTok. Forcing yourself out of the equation as much as possible or entirely prevents the “system” from exploiting you and making you into a prop to used for whatever it deems fit. Whether it makes money off of you or exploits all of your online data to train their AI algorithms, participating online has increasingly become something less anonymous and more akin to social control than anything else. What was originally intended to be a beacon of information has become a mess of info overload and monopolies tricking you into being a willing participant in their mass data harvesting schemes which in turn rolls in billions of dollars for shareholders and wealthy elites. At some point, you have to realize that enough is enough. I don’t argue against calling congresspeople or protesting in public, although that can have diminishing returns in this day and age.

You need to question your daily routine. Do you really need a smartphone to accomplish everything? Is the Windows gaming PC really necessary? Is being violated and humiliated by Discord’s age verification really worth using that service? What are you willing to give up and what are you willing to live with? These sorts of questions will drive a reexamination of what you want your life to look like. If you’re okay with the current regime and system and wish to exist in it, do whatever your bug man heart tells you. But if you have nagging doubts and thoughts that something is wrong with everything you see, then its your duty to explore what you can do and why you should do it.

The Soyence of Resistance